The Woman at 1,000 Degrees

118 Milk and Champagne 1945

Polished black shoes glisten under the straight hem of equally black trousers. The soles press into the carpet. Are they Grandad’s shoes? No, they’re that fellow’s with the hair. The prime minister, Grandma says. ‘Grandad talks to him and then he talks and talks.’ The prime minister is one of the Thors brothers from my dad’s youth, the very ones who tried to drag him away from my mother and thus prevent me from being conceived. I’m wearing a flared white dress with a fine yellow-and-green floral pattern, and I waddle between the auks that stand in clusters of three in the living room of Bessastadir, as the sun is about to set, toasting together and laughing, with black tails and white breasts, Icelandic post-war males. Some have their wives standing beside them, with their hair done up, wearing gloves and long dresses, many of them trailing trains. The women’s faces are powdered white and their lips and eyes are heavily painted. They all look like marble statues because none of them says a word, none of them move their lips towards a word or a smile.

But there is one exception: out by the window stands the famous Lone Bang in a simple black dress with her hair done up and high cheekbones, chiselled features and looking swell, with a radiant smile, surrounded by admirers and nodding. ‘No, in London,’ I hear her say in Icelandic. ‘Yes, for the entire war. I couldn’t travel anywhere!’ Her accent is both polished and pronounced.

The head of protocol bangs on a glass and opens the door to the dining room. Grandma and Grandad, the president and First Lady of Iceland, greet their guests at the threshold. The summer light shining through the French windows glistens on Grandad’s glasses. Behind them stands a long dining table with standing napkins, set for thirty people. Every plate carries a name-tag written in ornate letters. I find ‘Miss Herbjörg María Björnsson’ between the names of two gentlemen close to one end of the table, the one closest to the kitchen. There is a glass of milk beside the plate, the only one on the table.

A tall man with an elongated face appears to my left, greets me with an amiable smile, and positions himself behind his chair. I misread his name on the plate: ‘Mr Jóhann Fortuneson, wholesaler.’ His wife, a tawny figure with film-star looks, stands opposite him with blazing red lips and a fur scarf draped over her shoulders and nods. A thin-haired, portly man takes his place opposite me, one of those jovial, country types whom Iceland never seems to run short of, and who all bear the name of Gudmundur. He’s blazing crimson in the face, as if his collar were strangling him, with his puffed-up chest, as if a decade-old belch were trapped inside him. Trembling to his right is a pale lady wearing a traditional Icelandic costume. Her grizzled husband, with a bulging drawer-shaped chin, stands to the right: Mr Pétur Knudsen, permanent secretary of state.

As soon as Grandad and Grandma sit down at the table, everyone takes a seat and the chatter begins. Silence falls again when the prime minister stands.

‘It is a great honour for us to be here in Bessastadir this evening. Through their cordiality and hospitality, the president and his wife have demonstrated to us…’ As he continues his speech, I stare at the red-hued star on the other side of the table. Her skin is incredibly pure, thick and white, and bulges slightly in places as a result of the tight, stiff dress. Her face radiates health and good care. I’ve never seen a woman like this before. For some reason the term geothermal water heating springs to mind, words I learned only last week. Then I look down the table. Faces stare solemnly into space during the speech, with slightly downcast expressions, as if they could see beyond this silk-laced moment into the fate of our small nation. Grandma sits five plates away from me and bats her eyelids to the words of the orator standing beside her, who delivers his speech without any notes, with radiant dignity, with one thumb dug into the sleeve of his waistcoat, which makes him look like a vigorous alpinist, standing freshly awoken in front of a mountain cabin, adjusting the chest straps on his backpack. A snow-white tuft of hair stands upright on his head, conveying the impression that men of this kind are either geniuses or lunatics. ‘We Icelanders have the deepest respect for the office of the president because it is the greatest honour we can bestow…’ Grandad takes the praise with a suffering air.

At the end of the speech, Elín, the soft-cheeked but heartless maid, storms into the room with three colleagues with the starter: smoked trout on northern flatbread. I’m still unused to cutlery and grab the whole slice with my hand, bite into it, and then take a big sip of milk. The film star closes her eyes and offers me a forbearing smile. The chatter starts again and Mr Fortuneson talks over my head.

‘Pétur, have you heard anything more from Dawson?’

I turn to the permanent secretary of state and have another sip of milk as I watch the answer flow out of his drawer.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact. It’s all looking pretty good.’

I feel the blood beginning to boil in my neighbour’s veins, and his good wife’s teeth sparkle as she smiles. She joins in with some flatbread on her fork.

‘Oh, Mr Knudsen. You and your wife really must come visit us at our summerhouse east in Thingvellir before the autumn sets in. You’re very welcome!’

Mrs Knudsen stretches out her chin and nods slightly with the hint of a mute smile. The Gudmundur across from me breaks into the conversation: ‘Yes, were you applying for a licence, an import licence?’

‘Yes, for American cars. Chèvre au lait,’ says Mrs Fortuneson ecstatically, making the American car maker sound like a fancy French hors d’oeuvre.

‘Yes, not just Chevrolets, but also Chryslers and Fords,’ Mr Fortuneson explains. ‘Soon we’ll be able to start importing American cars on a proper scale.’

‘Just imagine,’ says the wife.

‘Yes, it’s a whole new country that lies ahead of us,’ says Mrs Knudsen with a nodding head and northern accent. ‘Who would have thought the war would bring us so much prosperity?’

‘Yes, this was the best war,’ says the thin-haired countryman, raising his glass. ‘Let’s toast to that. Cheers to the war!’

The Knudsens and the Fortunesons laugh at this joke, which seems far from a joke, however, and they raise their glasses. I notice that my glass has also been filled by accident, and I grab it without a second thought, clinking it against theirs and swallowing a giant gulp. I haven’t tasted a fizzy drink since Miss Denmark offered me Coke at the beginning of the war, and I feel a headache developing within seconds.

‘Pity the war didn’t last longer. We could have made even more money!’ the Gudmundur adds, triggering a chorus of polite laughter.

The ginger lady puts down her glass and stares at it with bewilderment as she asks, ‘What’s this white wine called? It’s a bit different from the wines one knows, don’t you find?’

The permanent secretary’s wife puffs up her lips and leans over with some fine wrinkles around her mouth and nose to say, ‘It’s champagne.’

It doesn’t seem to mix well with milk.

The main course comes in coated with sauce: mountain leg of lamb with garden potatoes, rhubarb jam, and red cabbage. The adults are given red wine. I have no appetite and think of Dad, who is still hidden on the top floor, locked in a room, like a freak in a cage. Down here it’s all rustling silk and clanging silver, the old lady asks where one can get nylon stockings, and the tawny one answers ‘my Jóhann’ knows a man at ‘the base.’ All of a sudden I remember the finger-eaten woman on the staircase in Berlin. I accidentally have another sip of champagne and now feel queasy. Grandma stands up, puts down her big white napkin, and says a few words in Icelandic.

‘Thank you all for being with us this evening. This food has travelled a long way, and many have helped to make it good for us. And then there’s Icelandic skyr for desert.’

The old woman smiles slightly at her last line, generating mild laughter from the guests. Then she adds chirpily, ‘But please let the girls know if you want more. There’s plenty more in the kitchen!’

‘No, there’s nothing left,’ Elín shouts from the centre of the room, holding a silver tray up to her waist.

Someone titters, and the Gudmundur has a coughing fit, growing even redder in the face, almost purple, his eyes bulging as he sticks two fingers into his collar.

‘Thank you for that, Elín,’ Grandma answers with a glare. The wholesaler beside me pulls out a silver cigarette case and offers people beautiful white Lucky Strikes. I look at them with longing eyes, but only his wife accepts. He lights her cigarette and then his own, while the thickset man opposite me lifts his glass of red wine and starts a new conversation.

‘Where do you think the old man got his hands on all this red wine?’

‘He obviously got it in his years as governor.’

‘Yes, this vintage must be from ’thirty-nine, ’forty, because someone said this was French wine.’

‘Did all wine production stop during the war?’

‘It wasn’t that bad, but exports virtually stopped from Europe.’

‘Were things that bad on the Continent?’

Their words fuse with the shiny silk and chiffon, flickering candles and long gloves, resounding song and clinking plates, tobacco smoke and agitated waiters, paintings in golden frames, champagne milk in my stomach. The nausea is unbearable now. Suddenly the wholesaler turns to me and asks me in a smoke-spewing voice: ‘And what about you, young lady, where were you during the war?’

‘I? I… was… in… in Denmark and Germany.’

‘Yes, that’s right, isn’t it?’ a woman said.

‘Yes,’ I say, staring at the red mark her lips have left on the yellow filter. For some inexplicable reason it disgusts me.

‘And how… how was the war there?’

Now I erupt like Haukadalur’s Geysir. The jet gushes out of me in one big burst of vomit. The cascade lands on the table, toppling an empty glass and ending close to the film star’s plate. A tiny drop ends up on her empty dish. Thirty heads are silenced and turn towards me. The last thing I see is the light brown spew surrounding the crystal foot of the champagne glass that rises from the sludge like a brave statue. At its base the bubbles effortlessly climb the stem like balloons released to the heavens at an outdoor celebration. I observe it as if I were a bird, from the height of the sky. From a distance this celebration looks quite minuscule.